Issue 2 | October 2019
Welcome to the the Board of Certified Safety Professionals' (BCSP) Choose Safety e N ewsletter . This e Newsletter serves to provide information regarding the safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) career fields, and the value of certifications and designations, to high school and college student counselors.

In the e Newsletter below, you’ll find information about:

  • Safety Education for Youth
  • BCSP's Youth Safety Tool Kit
  • A Certified Safety Professional's (CSP) Journey to the Safety Profession
  • Information about the Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) Designation
  • Resources BCSP Provides to Students
  • A Look into a Graduating Class on the Path to the GSP
  • Information about Career Paths in Safety
  • Information on Requesting BCSP Ambassadors

We hope you enjoy our e Newsletter and join us in promoting the SH&E profession to young people. Together we can help make the world a safer place!

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BCSP is a not-for-profit corporation recognized as a leader in high-quality, accredited credentialing for safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) practitioners. BCSP establishes standards and certifies competency criteria in professional safety practice. Since 1969, over 100,000 BCSP credentials have been achieved.

More information regarding BCSP and our certifications and designations can be found on our website, BCSP.org
BCSP Focuses on Youth Safety, Education
Students and young people play an integral role in shaping the future of the safety profession.

Addressing these young learners about the importance of workplace safety, and the benefits of a career in safety, was the driving force behind creating the Youth Safety Tool Kit   a kit that includes a booklet full of pertinent SH&E information, a flier, tote bag, and a poster.

Among the information contained in the kit:
  • Earning potential of a career in safety
  • Examples of the industries needing safety professionals
  • Testimonials from current safety professionals
  • Safety career paths
  • Information about BCSP's Academic Database, and more!

Click the link to access a digital version of the booklet,   The Safety Profession: Do You Have What It Takes?
Request Yours Today!

To request the Youth Safety Tool Kit, fill out our BCSP Display and Literature Request using the link or button below!
SH&E Business Owner on Her Journey to the
Safety Profession
Samantha Lushtak, MS, CSP, CIT began her safety career before she even realized she was doing the work of a safety professional.

Lushtak, an environmental, health, and safety professional with over 10 years’ experience and owner of Absolute EHS – a safety consulting company, enrolled at Reed College after high school where she declared as a Chemistry major.

“During my junior year, I was beginning to wonder what I wanted to do with my chemistry knowledge and what I wanted to write my thesis on,” recalled Lushtak.

It was by the end of her junior year that Lushtak decided to leave Reed College and return home to New York and enroll at the City University of New York (CUNY) system where she wanted to pursue a chemistry-psychology major.

“The idea was to take psychology classes and transfer those back to Reed, but I realized shortly into my stint back home that I was not interested in going back into the “bubble” that comes with small schools,” said Lushtak.

The decision to remain home unknowingly set her on the path to understand the importance and existence of the safety profession. Lushtak began interning for the CUNY psychology department where she began working with Stachybotrys mold.
“The thing that sparked my interest in safety was the fact that I was working with undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-docs who came from biology and psychology, and none of them were handling their chemicals safely.” 
Benefits of GSP and Professional Certification
Among the many benefits BCSP offers to students seeking, or involved in, SH&E programs, the Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) designation is one of the most important .

The GSP is available to students graduating from SH&E degree programs which meet BCSP Qualified Academic Program (QAP) standards; it puts the students on a path to achieving the highly-regarded CSP certification. There is no fee to apply for the GSP, and it provides a heightened level of recognition for professional safety practice.

For reference, a QAP is a bachelor's, master's, or PhD academic degree program in safety, health, and the environment (SH&E) whose required course curriculum has a substantial match to the current Associate Safety Professional (ASP) examination blueprint. Additional information can be found on our QAP webpage . A list of all college programs that qualify as QAPs can be found here .

The CSP is the "gold standard" in safety certification. Obtaining the GSP puts the designation's holder on a path to earning the CSP by waiving the requirement of needing to obtain the ASP (a BCSP certification that most must possess in order to obtain the CSP) in order to sit for the CSP exam.
Information and BCSP Resources for Students Interested in Safety
BCSP offers several tools and resources designed to aid those pursuing a career in safety, or those beginning their careers in safety. Below is a list and description of these resources with a link to additional information.

Academic Database The BCSP Academic Database is an online database with degree, location, and contact information for more than 800 safety, health, and environmental college programs around the country. Recently updated, the Academic Database features an interactive map which conveniently shows colleges, degree programs, contact information, and more for schools across the country. 

Scholarships The BCSP Foundation, along with other organizations like the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), and the AGC Education and Research Foundation, offer scholarships to students in safety, health, and environmental degree programs. More information including submission deadlines, application information, scholarships amounts, etc. can be found by clicking the link. Note: Some submission dates have passed or will soon be closing. These are annual scholarships and can be applied for again next year.

BCSP Career Center The BCSP Career Center is a free job-posting service where job seekers and posters can upload resumes and seek or post job opportunities. Uploading a resume will allow companies seeking safety professionals to search and view your qualifications.

Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) The GSP is available to students who are obtaining a degree from a Qualified Academic Programs. As described in greater detail above, it is a designation that puts SH&E students ahead of the competition by setting them on the path to obtaining the Certified Safety Practitioner (CSP) certification.
Connect with Us!

We encourage you and your students to follow us on social media!

We upload pertinent information and updates weekly. It's a great way to stay-in-touch with the latest SH&E happenings, as well as any changes to BCSP policies that may affect future SH&E students.
Share Events with Us!
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Have an upcoming job fair, conference, or chapter meeting that you would like to share with readers? Would you like to invite a BCSP representative to attend an event? We would like to hear about it! 

Submit information on upcoming events using our new   Event Request Form .
Qualified Academic Program Graduates Earn GSP Designation

The Environmental Safety and Occupational Health (ESOH) department at the University of Findlay recognized students who earned BCSP's Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) designation after graduating last spring.

"The GSP indicates and recognizes the student's first step in the safety profession. It also recognizes that they have made a decision to be a lifelong learner, and will continuously assist in the improvement and advancement of the safety profession," commented Assistant Professor of ESOH at the University of Findlay Donald Elswick, CIH, CSP, CET, CHMM. "These GSPs are servant leaders."

BCSP's Examination Director Dave West, CSP, ASP, PE, CHMM recently spoke at Southeastern Louisiana University's Occupational, Safety, Health, and Environment (OSH&E) graduation ceremony where he addressed the graduates with a message about the benefits of obtaining the GSP and presented them with a GSP graduation folder containing information on obtaining the designation.

Explore Our 'Career Paths in Safety' Web Page

Much of the information and the programs/benefits described above can be found on our Career Paths in Safety webpage. Included is information on how to become a safety professional, information on salaries in the safety field, ways to enter the safety profession, and a video (below) on why students should choose safety.

Young people are the future of the safety profession, and the earlier young people are made aware of the importance of safety in the workplace, the greater the chance we all get to return home safely after a day's work

We hope you have enjoyed this e Newsletter and found the information helpful. If you have any questions you can reach out to us at anytime .

#ChooseSafety
Request an Ambassador to Speak at Your Next Engagement
To raise awareness about the value of accredited safety certification, BCSP established the BCSP Ambassador Program — an outreach initiative that engages select volunteers among BCSP certification holders to represent BCSP at events and speaking engagements with stakeholders in the SH&E field.

These could be events organized as part of conferences, those promoting safety as a career on campuses, and a variety of other official events.

If you would like to request an ambassador to speak to your students at your next event, contact the BCSP Ambassador Program!